By Erin Quinn

Tribune-Herald staff writer

Editor’s note: Republican Rob Curnock and incumbent Democrat Chet Edwards are vying for the U.S. House seat in District 17.

Q What will you do to create jobs in Central Texas, if elected?

Curnock: What you do is you do everything you can to promote business, because business is what creates jobs. ...What you do is you create a climate that allows business to thrive. Lower taxes, less regulations in many areas. It’s gotten to the point where businesses are so busy filling out paperwork for things they want to do or being responsible to regulatory agencies, that they end up spending their time doing that instead of working to create jobs, making a payroll, hiring people, getting their product out there, getting commerce going....

Edwards: I’ll continue my efforts. As I have chaired the VA (Veterans Affairs) committee, my budgets have added over 200 new jobs at the Waco VA hospital and the VA regional office. ...Second, one of my highest priorities has been to support the key defense programs at L-3. L-3 executives have said I have been responsible for over $300 million in defense programs coming into Waco, and I will continue that effort. ...Next year will be a critical year for transportation improvements of Central Texas with the transportation reauthorization bill up for a vote. I will use my experience and position to fight for better infrastructure for roads and highways. Finally, having a clean water supply at Lake Waco is important to our future economic growth, and I have added millions of dollars in programs for that purpose and will continue to do so.

Q What do you consider an earmark? How do you define whether it’s pork or a worthy project?

Curnock: I think the abuse of earmarks is destroying this country. It’s causing us to go into deficits. ... I believe that when you want to get to funding for the district, you want to get legitimate funding for infrastructure needs roads, bridges, schools, etc. You go through the legislative process, and you do what used to be done, which is that you state your case, you get others folks to go along with you. ...And it’s done in the light of day, you do it in the open daylight so everyone knows what it is. ...

Edwards: Earmarks are defined as any project that is not in a president’s budget request. While I have supported earmark reform, I am proud of the hundreds of millions of dollars I have brought to Central Texas to improve housing of Fort Hood soldiers, water quality at Lake Waco, and to create jobs at L3, our largest single employer. The millions of dollars I have brought into the Waco VA hospital for the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder research program was an earmark...

Q How would you describe the state of the economy in Central Texas?

Curnock: Actually, the economy in Central Texas is not doing too bad. Sure, some people are struggling, but for the most part there’s a lot of things happening, especially in District 17. For instance, with the Barnett Shale in the northern part of the district. And the oil and gas industries are doing extremely well, and they are hiring a lot of people....

Edwards: Middle class working families have been struggling for a long time now with higher gasoline, utility, health care and education costs. Our overall economy has been more stable than other parts of the country, but I think it’s important that we try to stabilize the national economy so that those problems don’t end up hurting employment and job growth in the Waco area.

Q Do you support the health care plan of the presidential nominee of your party? How, specifically, do you see it benefitting this district?

Curnock: I do (support the plan of John McCain). I disagree strongly with Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and basically what I call the socialists who want to federalize our whole medical industry. I am for getting tax incentives to try and get more businesses to be able to afford health care for their employees. We need to make it as affordable to individuals as we can by giving them tax breaks, medical accounts, there’s several different proposals out there. The wrong way to go is try to turn our health care system into something like Canada or England, where people have real problems with their health care. They come to America because we still have the best health care system in the world. It’s not perfect, but. boy. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else if I’m sick or need help....

Edwards: I don’t think the details of (Obama’s) plan have been laid out yet. So there will probably be a lot of changes made as it goes through the legislative process. But I think we have to address the problem of 47 million Americans who don’t have health insurance in order to reduce the rising costs of health care. If we don’t find a solution to the increasing millions without health care insurance, the cost of everyone else’s health care will continue to go up far faster than average wages. ...We need to sit down next year on a bipartisan basis to find out what can work and what we can afford, but we can not afford to do nothing. Ultimately, if we don’t find a way to make health care affordable for more Central Texans, then eventually Hillcrest and Providence will be driven into the ground financially if more and more people are uninsured.

Q Name one issue that your party’s presidential candidate and you disagree on.

Curnock: Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). I would be for drilling in ANWR. With horizontal drilling, now we can actually get oil at great distances without tearing up the land and tearing up the environment. We can leave a very small footprint, and we’ll get a lot of oil that we need. I disagree with him on that where he does not want to drill in ANWR. That’d be one area.

Edwards: One issue? And only one issue? Given the present state of the economy and the deficit our country is facing, I don’t think we can afford all of his new initiatives. So Congress will have to make tough choices next year on what we can and cannot afford to do. I am committed to bringing our deficit under control, and I opposed the repeal of the pay-as-you rules in Congress that lead to these massive deficits.

Q What would be your plan for the war in Iraq? How will it affect us?

Curnock: My plan would be to No. 1 let the generals fight the war. And they are doing it. General Petraeus did an awesome job the last several years and by all accounts the war over there is being won. Al Qaeda and other terrorists are all fleeing over to Afghanistan because they’re being pushed out by our soldiers who are doing a magnificent job in Iraq. And that’s why I strongly disagree, strongly disagree with my opponent who a couple years ago when it wasn’t quite as clear cut what was happening — we weren’t losing, but we weren’t winning — he voted to not allow us to do a troop surge and then later to cut off the funding for the troops that are there. I just fundamentally disagree with that because it says, not only, will I not allow you to win by not allowing a troop surge, but once you’re there, you won’t win because I am going to cut your funding from you and bring you back in defeat, which means Al Qaeda and the bad guys would have won. And so what’s happened is, the war in Iraq, we are winning it. It is wrapping up. And as the president and others have decided they’ll start shifting troops to Afghanistan or wherever else terrorists are attacking us. And that might be in northeast Africa. It doesn’t matter. Where they’re going after us, we have to fight them, we have to defeat them and we have to win.

Edwards: I think we must have a reduction of troops in Iraq in order to be able to increase our forces in Afghanistan. I said that in 2006, and my concerns proved to be well-founded because our position in Afghanistan has gone south very seriously. I think we ought to have a goal of trying to get most of our troops out of Iraq over the next several years, but we have to be flexible enough to respond to the actual situation on the ground. The reality is our military leaders tell me there are more Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan today than Iraq, so we need to put our forces where most of the terrorists are today.

We need to put the forces where most of the terrorists are today. I also believe we must continue to put pressure on Iraqi political leaders to take more responsibility for their own nation’s future. The Iraqis have to make tougher choices in bringing about political reconciliation and the training of their own police and military forces. I am not for an open-ended, unconditional commitment of $10 billion a month in U.S. tax dollars to Iraq. The sooner they get the message that they have to do more, the better chance we have of a stable Iraq.

(Edwards says Curnock’s allegations on troop funding and votes on the surge are “an absolute falsehood,” adding he has voted for all 33 defense votes to fund the troops in Iraq.)

The following questions were asked only of Curnock:

Q In your campaign literature, you say in bold lettering that Edwards has “betrayed our trust.” How, specifically, do you contend he has done that?

Curnock: Well, I think he’s betrayed our trust in the area of the troops in Iraq, No. 1. You just don’t do that in a time of war.

Q But bills are packaged in a way that might include one item a congressperson is for, and others he/she is against.

Curnock: This is what I would call a poisoned pill. The poisoned pill is, you’re voting to cut off the funding for the troops, you have a date for withdrawal. In my mind, you do not vote for that bill. It says to your troops and says to your enemy that we can’t win, and that we aren’t willing to do what it takes to win. ...

Q Edwards has a documented history of supporting veterans in Congress. Why should local veterans vote for you?

Curnock: No. 1, my father worked at a veterans’ hospital his entire life. I grew up with veterans’ issues foremost at our dinner table. My father was a World War II vet. He was an orthitist. He took care of gentlemen who had their arms, legs paralyzed or blown off. He made their life a little easier. So, I’ve always been a strong proponent of veterans and veterans’ issues....

And I absolutely agree that we need to do everything we can to support veterans and their issues because they are due everything that has been promised to them. And as a Congressman, that is your job. To get the veterans in your district, and the country, to get the veterans everything they are owed....

Q You tell voters that you represent their “conservative values.” What, specifically, are those values?

Curnock: I am for lower taxes, in spite of the commercials that are being put out about me... I think we pay too much taxes. I want to secure our borders. I think we have to find out who’s in this country, why they’re here, and what they mean to do. And we need to make sure that we stop the flow of illegal immigrants whether it’s in the northern border or the southern border. It does not matter. ...I’m for overhauling the tax code. I am a pro-life candidate. I absolutely disagree with partial-birth abortion. ...I am very strongly pro-NRA. Yes, (Edwards) did get the endorsement of the NRA this year, but in 2003 he received the grade of an “F” from the NRA. ...As far as funding for the VFW, yes he’s done a lot for the VFW, that’s his role in the military appropriations. He can get them the things they need, so therefore they have endorsed him. There’s nothing magical about that. He’s doing what he would do or should do in the position that he’s in, and he’s doing what I would do if I was in his position. ...I believe, our country needs to go stronger with capitalism, pro-business, lower taxes, etc. etc. He supports Barack Obama, so thereby, he supports Barack Obama’s agenda, which by everything I can tell, and everything anybody else can tell, is a very socialist agenda. Barack Obama, as he said the other day, would like to spread the wealth around. That is called socialism. And I profoundly disagree with that philosophy.

The following questions were asked only of Edwards:

Q Is there a vote that you have made in Congress that you wish you could take back? Which one and why?

Edwards: If I had known that the intelligence was dead wrong on Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, I would have voted to continue sanctions against Iraq, rather than authorizing war there. I am glad Saddam Hussein is gone. He was an evil human being. But the overwhelming reason presented for going into the war in Iraq was to chemical, biological, and potentially nuclear weapons that threatened the United States. And that turned out not to be true.

Q You endorsed Barack Obama and was on his short list of vice presidential picks. Because Texas is a “red” state, could this association hurt you?

Edwards: Listen, when George Bush was getting 69 percent of the vote in our district in 2004, I won re-election. It’s no surprise to anyone in this district that I am a Democrat. If elected, I hope Barack Obama will follow through on his commitment to work on a bipartisan basis to bring positive change to our country. My position has always been consistent whether we have a Republican or a Democrat in the White House. If I think what he is doing as president is right for our district and country, I will work with him. If I think what he is doing is not right for our district and country, I will respectfully disagree.

Q You have championed veterans in your decisions made in Congress. What else needs to be done, locally, on the veterans front?

Edwards: Because of the budgets I have authored, we have already added more than 200 new employees at the Waco VA hospital and the VA regional office here. We must continue that progress over the next several years to build the Waco VA into a world-class research facility that provides quality health care, not just for Central Texas veterans, but for veterans all across the country, particularly in the area of mental health care. It is important to continue expanding employment at the regional VA office in order to reduce the six-month waiting time to veterans who have earned their benefits. That’s far too long, and it’s an unconscionable delay. By increasing the number of employees there, I have moved us down the right path of reducing that waiting time. The key is who can do the most for veterans, a freshman with no legislative experience or the chairman of the chairman of the VA appropriations subcommittee who authored and passed last year the largest veterans’ health care increase in the 77-year history of the VA. That’s one reason I’ve been endorsed by the Veterans of Foreign Wars’ Political Action Committee.

equinn@wacotrib.com

757-5748